Warnings: oc-centric, mild ooc, emotional hurt, physical agony, graphic violence/torture, FLUFFFFFF
Chapter eleven.
"DADDY HELP ME!" She screeched out with a projected power from an ability. Suddenly, an image appeared in the air above Melody, a huge picture that towered over them, a perfect view to everyone's eyes, the image was half real and half pressed into their minds.
Images of her wedding flashed up erratically, bits of film interspersed with still pictures, the memories beaming directly out of her mind as she relived them. They progressed to images of rural china and snow steeped mountains, and she was in flight; soaring above the caps of perfect crystal ice and through crags of jagged rock, she held her new husband's arm, dangling him, as though jokingly threatening to drop him. They could feel she was about to pull him up into her embrace as a deafening roar of automatic gun fire hounded their ears and sprays of blood erupted into the air, seeming to shower the whole desert in crimson. She was looking down as her future Mohinder was gunned to shreds, an unrelenting torrent of fifty guns reducing him to several hundred scarlet stains on the mountainside and all that was left was the hand still clasping hers, now leaking blood and sinew. The men were familiar looking, dressed as agents of the 26 Programme and laid on a ridge on the mountain path, waiting for when she dared to fly in this low. In horror she dropped the grim hand, seeing it plummet to the ground and then whipping her head to face the agents, her telekinesis having unconsciously kicked in to form a shield that protected her. With a single shaking flick of her hand she instigated an avalanche that buried the agents in a torrent of heavy, pure, screaming death. As her eyes went hazy and black, she saw Danko's face in the retreating helicopter...
Next they saw was Abi kicked brutally to the floor of her room where she was staying in China. Numerous more kicks and stamps rained down on her from above, to her gut, legs, shoulders, back and head. A lazy foot kicked her on her front and while they saw the mat floor through her eyes, they heard the eleven gunshots and felt where the bullets hit her body, though they felt none of the pain. She was poked onto her front by the same lazy foot and another twelve rounds stabbed her and ripped her open. This time her eyes were looking up, hazy and waterlogged, but all saw the bloody cold image – Danko. Shooting her with his own pistol, looking coldly satisfied as he was sure she stayed dead. Soon she blacked out again.
The following image was Gabriel's wretched face, looming over her, tear stained and distraught, cradling her. He spoke, but could not hear his voice and soon the two fingers came up to point to her head, and they heard him sawing her skull open. Blood sullied her vision and it became hazy, as though full of smoke. Her head came off, she could see it lying next to herself. Everyone felt the uncomfortable and eerie sensation in their brains as she relayed a tiny part of what it felt like to them from her mind. He poked and prodded for what seemed like forever when suddenly they psychically knew what was going on. He put the top of her head back on and watched, waiting expectantly. He had tried to give her Claire's healing ability. Testing out a theory that was still just a theory and attempting to inject the cheerleader's gift into his dying daughter.
They saw disjointed images from over several months, images of a bedroom turned into her hospital ward, bandages and blood, family, friends, cries of agony.
"Before, my ability felt like a hundred tiny ants under my skin, desperately wanting to come out and work." They heard her voice and knew she was describing her ability.
"It feels like I've got pacmen in my brain chewing it up from the inside out." She said again, a different time from the previous comment, this time explaining how this felt, Gabriel's attempt to download an ability from one person to another.
"Hers and Gabriel's abilities are conflicting. She cannot process his ability, and therefore cannot integrate the healing gift into her own array of abilities." They heard the voice of Gwin tell a trembling Melody. They heard Melody screaming at Gabriel from behind a closed door. They saw Sylar, holding her hand, changing her bandages. Morgan, Gwin and Raewyn coming to visit her. Elle keeping watch for a few nights, all of it flashing before their eyes like a time-lapse film.
She was looking in the mirror, observing her scars, marring her skin and deforming her mouth. She touched the thin line above her brows and burst into tears.
"I don't have any of the healing left. It saved my life, left me patched up and burnt itself out. My body fought off dad's ability." Her voice said.
They were washed with a feeling of calm. A feeling she had experienced for a couple of months, and one that they knew was about to be shattered.
They watched the TV she was watching, she was cuddled into Sylar's lap, Gabriel and Melody toasting champagne and the President walking out to a gargantuan crowd, who went wild at his appearance. It was a speech that would set out the future for Specials in America. He had just finished the introduction when the image flashed bright orange and then static rolled over.
"Witnesses at the scene all confirm it was a Special who detonated, and killed the President." A shaken news anchor reported a few minutes later.
"Get your things, we have to go. Danko is coming." Melody said urgently, and they followed her up the stairs, to her room where she pulled out her case, stuffing her album and wedding photo in the front pocket and jogging down the stairs. She was too late, agents were in the house and a dozen rifles were pointed at her family's heads. As soon as Melody laid eyes on her daughter, she ran for her, glad to know she was safe (she had heard gunshots a second ago, they found themselves knowing). Someone had mistaken this as a dash for freedom and their overly trigger-happy finger squeezed the fatal rod. A single shot rang out and echoed deeply in the void of silence. Melody's body collapsed into her daughter, who didn't move, couldn't move to pick it up, wouldn't move to step away. She stood frozen, jammed, crashed like an overwhelmed computer. Her face was warm with blood and bits of her mother's head. They saw Nathan lower his smoking weapon immediately and turn ashen. Her lips were slightly parted, and her tongue instinctively edged out to lick her dry lips, and a pang of metallic taste shot through her. Sylar seemed to explode at this and with a furious gesture, ripped off the front of the house and sent it flying across the street, along with the agents and he wheeled himself out into the street, in a pathetic, awkward motion that was offset by his agonising waves of power.
Gabriel grabbed her and flew them away from the scene, later teleporting her to the past where she might have a life where she could forget all this and start again. Joined by her friend, Nina, the sad little German woman she had met a long time ago, whose family had been tortured and killed by Danko. They all saw her put a gun to her head and blow her own brains out after a few months in the past, unable to cope with the memories and survivor's guilt.
The images spluttered to an end and Abi was left lying on the ground, staring at the sky, crying silently and perfectly still. The crowd of agents and Specials were left in a dazed state of turmoil, having lived a tiny part everything they had just seen, and unable to raise a hand to hurt the woman who had already been hurt too much. Gabriel half considered putting the wretch out of her misery, but was unable to raise his hand, let alone the power. Stunned and sickened silence fell over the desert, no one was able to say anything, or find anything to say.
After what felt like forever of nauseous digesting of the information forced upon them, Mohinder made his way down the hill and to the still figure of Abi who looked too exhausted to even cry anymore, the tears just fell out of her without any expression on her face. He touched her hand and was careful to avoid the electric burns inflicted on her by Gabriel.
"I want to let it go. But I don't know how." She whispered, so quietly he barely made out what she said.
"Let me help you." He said.
"Please?" She begged him, knowing if he refused she would just give up the will to live there in the desert. He gently squeezed her hand and she felt the hundreds of ants underneath her skin quieten and fall into a slumber. Then she knew no more.
Two weeks later, Abi woke in a clean and airy private hospital room. Sylar, Melody and Gail had even come to the States to see her, and it was Gail who was with her when she woke.
"Hello." She said sweetly. Abi grunted in response, unsure how to use her vocal chords for a moment.
"The doctors said you shouldn't try to move, or you'll hurt yourself again." She said, as though parroting what the nurse had told her.
"Why can't I feel the ants?" She asked. She thought the little girl would look at her strangely, but instead she nodded solemnly, knowingly.
"Gwin came with us. She took all your abilities away. She says she'll give them back when you get better." She reported.
"I'd like to stay with her." Abi mused to herself. It made sense. If she was ever to go mad again, she would not be a threat to anyone else when the gentle lady could just neutralise her with a few fancy gestures.
"I think she wants you to go and sleep over at her house." Gail said, as though Gwin's invitation had been to a slumber party.
A couple of months after that little conversation Abi was safely installed in London, close to Gwin, in fact, working at the club, and back on her medication. Mohinder, true to his word, had come with her and lived with her, helping her whenever she began to have an episode or the rage was becoming irrational. Once they had settled in, Gabriel and Claire had come to visit, Claire was just spoiling for an excuse to come back to London and the club.
As Abi and Mohinder were clearing away the dishes from the dinner the four of them had shared (take out in the end), Claire and Gabriel had thought no one was looking when they thought to steal kisses from each other. Abi had walked in right at the inappropriate moment and dropped the glass of wine she was going to offer. Her partner came rushing in, wondering what he was going to have to deal with this time, but all he saw was innocent shock on Abi's face.
"What?" Claire demanded hotly after an awkward few moments. Another few moments.
"I...This never happened in my time." She said eventually. "You got with...someone else." She chose her words delicately, and Gabriel passed her a thin-eyed look of suspicion.
"Who?" The blonde woman asked, also now suspiciously curious.
"It's probably best I don't tell you. You'd probably freak out." She replied and Claire scoffed.
"I'm together with the one man I thought I'd hate forever, what's going to be freakier than that?" She said. Gabriel forced himself to ignore the comment and not take the insult she did not mean to offer. Abi shook her head vehemently.
"It doesn't matter now, though does it?" She said quickly. "You two look happy enough, who am I to plant the seeds of doubt?" She said and backed away from the situation rapidly – right into Mohinder and accidently bowled him back into the kitchen.
You so would freak out if you knew you and Peter were getting married in my future. Gabriel heard her think. He physically balked and Claire looked at him strangely. He shook his head as if to shake the look off and tried to calm himself. She obviously hadn't heard Abi's stray thought. All the better he thought.
Once normality had been resumed and Claire had stopped passing suspicious looks at Gabriel for knowing what was going on and not telling her, Abi decided to bring something up.
"Claire, in my time we developed a programme known simply as Clinics that eventually went national. It was a place where Specials could go for advice, support and active help. We helped people control their abilities. I heard The Company has been doing quite a bit of that." She said, and looked to Mohinder to indicate where she had got the information.
"Yes." Claire replied, the concealed information forgotten now that they were on a topic close to her heart. "I've been trying to get my dad to look into something like that, you see that's the problem we're finding with most Specials. They just help learning how to control their abilities and once that's done, they're fine, not a danger to anyone." She said, enthusiastically.
"That's where they started back in my time." Abi said happily. She enjoyed reminiscing about her past/future that didn't involve the bloodshed that dominated the last year of her future life.
"What exactly did you do? Maybe I could get some pointers..."
AN: Thank you to those who stuck through to the end with this story. My updating has been shameful and I apologise to those who I made wait. I hope you enjoyed the story, especially now that it has an end! Special thanks to Addicted to Blaize.Z 3 who added this and spurred me on to post the remaining chapters. Many thanks again, BTI xx